Suffocating
by maddyjade
Summary: "Her heels dug into the soft soil and she hoped if she pressed her weight down hard enough she would fall into the earth and never be seen again." Anna during the time of her parents death.


Disclaimer: I own nothing in regards to Disney's Frozen and all rights of the characters and dialogue etc belong to the Disney company!

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**Suffocating**

Anna sunk lower into the bath until she was completely succumbed in soapy water. Under the surface, it was too quiet for her liking. It gave her too much space to think, too much space to lay her thoughts out in front of her one by one until they surely drove her to insanity. But the warm water enveloped her in the type smothering embrace that she longed for so greatly. The type of embrace that only dissipated when she chose to break away. The type of embrace that would lead her to her deathbed if she held on for too long, and it was oh so easy to forget how long too long was.

Drowning had been on Anna's mind a lot lately. Every time she stepped into the bath she had expected it to be her last. Her bathtub as her coffin at least she would die surrounded by a warmth she hadn't felt in weeks, but if Anna thought about it enough she could replace the weeks with years. If Anna thought about it enough she could not recall a single moment within those years where she felt whole. The winter breeze would pass her by and she could feel it whistling through her bones as if she was made of cavities.

Anna wished the bathwater could seep through her skin and fill holes the frostbite had worn in her chest until she could feel warm again. But what years of wishing had taught Anna is that it's better to not wish at all.

It had taken four weeks to turn Anna into a ticking time bomb. Left untouched for much longer she was destined to implode. Her mother and father had left for a conference in a neighbouring kingdom, and what was supposed to be a seamless journey turned into tragedy when an Arendelle ship didn't arrive at the kingdoms shores, but parts of it did.

The young and recently orphaned princess often wondered where they were when their ship was torn apart. Were they sleeping? Were they together? Was it quiet? Were they scared? Anna had come up with an image for everyone of them. Her last memory of her parents was one of smiles and waves as she wished them a good journey. Like most of Anna's wishes, this one crumbled in her palms and fell through her fingers.

Resting beneath the bathwater, she decided on what her last wish would be. Anna would wish that when her parents drowned, that at least they had been warm. Warm in a blanket, warm in each others arms, warm whatever way they could be. She wished they were warm, even if it meant a life of inescapable coldness for herself.

Anna felt a tightness begin to swell in her chest, lungs desperate for release. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but she could endure it. Her last couple of baths she began testing how long she could stay below the water. On the rare days when she was strong and focused she could hold her breath for a good chunk of time. On the days when her sadness had already crushed the air out of her lungs, she could barely last a second. But on the most common days where she felt nothing, her mind was left to wander until she couldn't tell how much time had passed, and only let her remember how much she needed to breath when it was almost too late.

She emerged and took a gulping breath. She waited for relief to follow but no matter how much air she breathed lately, Anna always felt like she was suffocating. She pulled the bath plug and sat there while the water emptied, hoping she might slip away down the drain as well. Anna turned her head to look through window just in time to see the last ray of sunlight dip behind the mountains. How quickly the day turned to night. How quickly things disappeared. She sat there cold and wet and impossibly alone.

Anna dried and dressed herself and lay on her bed until one of her handmaidens came and fetched her for dinner. Dinner was one of the only times Anna saw her ghost of a sister. She only spoke when spoken to. She only moved when she had to. Elsa was careful, robotic, cautious, and a total stranger in Anna's eyes.

Of course with the passing of their parents, Anna ate alone now. The vast expanse that was the dining table even larger when only seating herself. The memories of story-telling and laughter flickered out one by one, just like the family she used to sit down and eat with. First her sister, then her parents. Anna never felt like she had a huge family, but the empty seats around her said otherwise. Without her parents, without her sister, the room was too quiet, too empty, and too big for one person.

Elsa may as well be dead.

Anna had only seen her older sister one time after the death of her parents. Three weeks ago, the day after the news of their parents death, Anna was seated for dinner. Elsa's seat was set, and Anna's fingers drummed along the table in anticipation for her arrival. What would Elsa say to her? Was this tragedy enough to break the decade long silence between them?

Elsa had left the dining room as swiftly as she had came. Upon seeing Anna, and only Anna, at the table she spun on her feet and left. It was so quick Anna didn't even get to see the look on her face. In her anger Anna had picked up her steak knife and dragged it along the table, slicing it left and right until the wood shavings stung her eyes and a maid dragged her away, crying and screaming.

Anna didn't even see her at the funeral. She stood there in the grass between her parents memorials, head bowed to hide the constant flow of tears. Anna hadn't heard a word of the pastors eulogy because she was too busy destroying herself from the inside out. Too busy hating Elsa for not even attending her own parents funeral. Her shoulders shook in anger and in tears, she suppressed her sobs by biting the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood. Her heels dug into the soft soil and she hoped if she pressed her weight down hard enough she would fall into the earth and never be seen again.

But the ceremony came to the end, and the people of Arendelle departed, and Anna was once again alone. So she ran. She ran until her lungs ached and there were no more tears to cry, and her despair was replaced with a fury that wanted everything around her to pay for the way she felt. Anna found her way back to her room and slammed the door behind her, kicking over the coat rack that stood beside it.

Anna threw her standing mirror into the ground, feeling satisfied as glass shards scattered their way across the floor. She swiped the books off her desk and flipped it over with a grunt. She tipped over chairs and ripped the sheets off her bed and clawed at her curtains and threw the contents of her closet all over her floor. She flung herself on her bed and screamed into her pillow, screamed and screamed until her throat was sore and raw. How wrong Anna was when she thought she had no more tears to cry. She lifted her face from her pillow just enough for the portrait sitting on her nightstand to catch her eye. It was a portrait of her, her sister, and her parents. She had no idea why she had kept it throughout the years. Anna's face scrunched in her disgust and formed a fist, striking the glass and bloodying her hand. What was the point of having it anymore? There were no happy memories, at least none that could make up for all her years of solitude. All her years in the dark. All her years wishing and wishing for things that would never come true.

Anna smothered her face with the pillow and sobbed while the maids forced their way into her room. She cried as the palace doctor bandaged up her hand, cried as the maids put her in the bath and tried to scrub away her sadness, cried as they put her to bed and told to 'have courage dear, things will be better in the morning'.

That was three weeks ago, and three weeks since the last time Anna had let her tears fall freely. Three weeks since she had felt anything at all. At least her fury had burned fire in her heart that coursed through her veins, turning her skin red hot. A passion to destroy was still a passion. Now she was left cold and empty, walking through the halls as if on auto-pilot. She never needed to focus on where she was going. Eyes closed she knew what every turn lead to, what lied behind every door. She knew what floorboards creaked and what carpets were stained, the reason behind every scratch on the wall. She knew the palace like the back of her hand, but that wasn't surprising when she had been imprisoned within its walls for so long.

There was one corridor she seemed to know much more than all the others. It was colder than the others, Anna told herself that was because the corridor was lined with windows. It was winter after all, the palace couldn't keep all the cold out. But it was cold even in the summer, and for that she had no explanation. Today, however, the corridor was absolutely freezing. She could see her breath in front of her as she made her way down the hall.

This was Elsa's corridor. Anna was standing in front of Elsa's door.

In that moment there was nothing Anna wanted to do more than beat it down.

Before her mind could comprehend what was happening, Anna threw her shoulder into the door. She felt pain radiate down her arm but that was the last thing on her mind. "Elsa!" She screamed, ramming the door once more. She raised her hands and hit the door until they were red and stinging, with each strike came a scream of her sister's name, calling to let her in, let her in so she could beat Elsa down herself, let her in so Anna could right the many wrongs Elsa had done unto her, let her in so Anna could be reminded she had a sister at all.

Anna twisted the doorknob violently over and over again as if she couldn't understand what the concept of 'locked' was. Tears were falling freely now as she grunted and yelled and banged and sobbed, in a pathetic attempt to get her sisters attention. The only thing that was in her way was this damn door and if she could get past the door she could squeeze her hands around Elsa's throat and make her _feel_, make her feel the way she had felt for the last decade. Suffocating, choking, not being able to take a proper breath because the air around her was toxic and cold, filled with longing that made her bones ache and threaten to crumble at any given second.

"Open the door!" Anna cried finally, feeling something rip deep within her. She collapsed on her hands and knees. She couldn't hold herself up anymore. Mentally nor physically. "Open the door," she mumbled, blinded by her tears. She sobbed through her teeth, the epitome of a broken girl.

If she couldn't get past the door to hurt Elsa, Anna figured she'd do it with words.

"Who are you?" She called, her voice low and shaky. "Because whoever is in there sure isn't my sister." Anna paused to wipe away her tears. A futile effort as they just kept coming.

"Sisters don't do this to each other. Sisters don't shut one another out - they talk, about anything and everything, and they hug together, and cry together, and they're there for one another!" She said, her voice raising intensity.

"You were the only friend I ever had," Anna whispered, her breath catching on every syllable. She remembered racing in the halls, playing hide and seek, snowball fights in the winter. "What happened? What horrible thing happened to you that you had to do this to me?"

Maybe there wasn't a reason. Maybe the big sister that once protected and cared for her had simply seen the error of her ways. Maybe it was Anna that was the problem.

"Our parents are dead, Elsa!" Anna cried, burying her head in her hands, "Our parents are dead and you weren't even at the funeral! I was - I was standing there! Alone! Between those two damn boulders and I didn't see you once - the only people in this place that you dare speak a word to and you weren't even there! You weren't there for them and - and you weren't there for me!"

Anna choked back another sob and rolled her back to the door. "You've never been there for me," She curled up, feeling like every happy memory was slowly drifting away from her in that very moment as she realised just exactly how alone she had been in her life up until then. Every happy memory seemed like an illusion as she said, "No one's ever been there for me."

Anna cried into her knees. She cried for the childhood that was taken away from her. The parents that were too. The sister that never loved her. She cried for every happy memory that should've been there but wasn't. She cried because she couldn't find a point anymore. All this time she had been hanging on to something, anything, but when she looked around her she saw not a single thing that could guide her through this torment. She was so young, too young. So young to be left on her own. Too young to feel this way.

"What are you going to do Anna?" She whispered to herself, sitting back and resting her head against the door. "You have no one." As quickly as she had sat back she fell forward, curling in on herself in the hopes that if she made herself small enough she'd slip out of reality altogether. "I have no one."

Anna had come here with the intention of hurting Elsa but only ended up hurting herself. As much as she had wanted Elsa to feel her pain and piercing loneliness, she couldn't pin the blame on her. She couldn't pin the blame on anyone. Anna had analysed her flaws extensively and thoroughly. She was loud and she rambled and she was annoying and jumpy and nosy. She was needy and she cried a lot and she never liked to be left on her own. She was lonely and sad and she just wanted her sister, where was her sister, why can't she just get back her sister?

Her sister was in her room, as always.

Anna was on the on the other side, as always.

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**A/N**: Well, that was heart-wrenching.

I just fail to believe that Anna's this happy, go-lucky girl who's managed to make it out of that terrible childhood A-OK. The movie briefly skims over the real tragedy that is her growing years and despair is a real and authentic human emotion that no one can escape. I guess Anna needed to hit rock bottom in order to become the girl we see in the movie.

Leave me your thoughts. :)


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